The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-05-30
NEW Y0RK'S JUDICIARY.
SOMETHING ABOUT THE LUXURY
OF A LAWSUIT.

The Laws Protect the Poorest As Wen
as the Richest Citizen = The Working
Women's Protective Union and How
1t Has Broken Up Impositions Upon
Poor Women.
NEW YORK, May 2S-The District Courts
of the city of New York do not furnish
much material for the picturesque news
paper writer Occasionally case viii be
tried in one of them which, on account of
some odd or unusual circumstances con-
nected with it, is deemed worthy OF brief no
tice but, as rule, these inferior tribunals
sit day after day and week after week dis
posing of their hundreds and thousands of
cases, unnoticed by the press, their very ex-
istence unknown to nine-tenths of the people.
And yet do not exaggerate when / say that
there is no branch of our civil judiciary that
is more important, none that we could not
better afford TO have abolished.
1t is frequently SAID that a lawsuit is a
luxury that the rich only can afford to in
dulge in. 1t isn't SO in New York The law
here not only extends its protecting arm
over the meanest citizen, but there is no one
so poor that he may not invoke that protec
ton If a person desiring to begin suit is
able to pay the small fees of the court and
its officers and to employ counsel, he is, of
course required to do So and will recover
back his expenses from the defendant if he
wins his suit. But poverty alone does not
close the doors of the District Courts to any
man or woman on Manhattan Island. All
that is necessary for the person who thinks
he is wronged to do is to make an affidavit
that he is not possessed of 500
worth of property aside from the claim he
desires TO prosecute and get lawyer to GER
4lnN HI ,1as,,
of opinion that the petitioner has a good
cause of action, and the Judge not only al
lows the suit TO be begun without the pay
ment of penny, but assigns AN attorney
and counselor to prosecute it and deputies
an officer TO serve the summons. The veriest
tramp in the street, if he has a good cause
of action against millionaire for &C., may
have his claim prosecuted, and if he wins 1t,
is given a special allowance to pay him for
his trouble. In truth, it is the glory of the
New York judiciary that justice is as free as
the air or the water
But there are instances in which not alone
the open courts and the freedom from ex-
pense prevent oppression-at the dividing
line where justice is done in the name of the
law and Justice is violated under the forms
of law. And it is just at this point that an
organization that ought to be more widely
known than it is steps in. Ignorance, timid-
ity, dire necessity often causes a poor woman
to submit to WRONG and imposition. To
take charge of such cases the Working
Womens Protective Union was estab-
lished in 1868. This society declares its
object, among other things, to be ''the
prevention and redress of frauds and inn
positions upon working women who obtain
livelihood by employuents other than house
hold service" and "the enforcing by legal
proceedings, free of cost to working women,
the payment of wages which they have
earned" And how well the society has full
filed its mission is shown by the fact that
it has extended its aid to $4,000 women and
answered PAS, 900 applications. 1t not only
employs counsel to prosecute the claims OF
working women, but, in case an appeal is
taken, it follows the cause into the higher
courts and attends to it there.
| have not space to tel how this society
has succeeded in breaking up some of the
worst impositions upon working women.
Those who before grew rich by swindling
these poor creatures when they supposed
they were helpless now have Wholesome
respect for the Working Womens Protec-
tive Union.
The judiciary of the city of New York
has not always been as pure as it should
have been. All the world knows of the
corruption of the Tammany Judges years
ago, but there is nothing sensational or ex-
citing in stories showing how justice is
done even to the meanest man or woman.
The most beneficient of our institutions
are frequently those that make the least
display, and our district courts are in that
category. Y. l.. WHITE.